Suspect Denies Strangling Victim (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Suspect Denies Strangling Victim

MURDER suspect Graham Coutts was as shocked as anyone when Jane Longhurst went missing.

He told police: "I can't understand her disappearance - it is totally out of character.

"I'm sure she would have told someone if she was going away."

Coutts, who was brought up in the Cotswolds and went to Westwoods Grammar School in Northleach, is on trial at Lewes Crown Court.

He denies murdering Miss Longhurst at some point between March 14 and April 19 last year.

He allegedly strangled her and stored the body for five weeks before burning it in woods near Pulborough, West Sussex.

Coutts, aged 35, of Waterloo Street, Hove, made his first statement to police a week after Miss Longhurst vanished.

He said he and Miss Longhurst had become friends through his partner Lisa Stephens.

She and Miss Longhurst had both been teachers at Oakmeads Community College in Burgess Hill.

Miss Longhurst, 31, and her 35-year-old partner Malcolm Sentance enjoyed dinner at Coutts' flat the Sunday before she vanished.

Coutts said: "Jane and Michael were fine, their usual happy selves." Conversations, he said, centred on Miss Stephens' pregnancy and her new kitten.

Mr Sentance and Miss Longhurst spoke of their plans to move from their home in Shaftesbury Road, Brighton, to Bath.

Mr Sentance, he said, was suffering stress with his job as an education welfare officer and was interested in Coutts' sales job for Kleeneze, the door-to-door cleaning products company.

Coutts said Miss Longhurst telephoned on the day she went missing and chatted about Lisa's pregnancy: "There was nothing out of the ordinary in Jane's voice."

Mr Sentance called him the following day and asked if he had seen his partner. Coutts said: "I was shocked - I couldn't believe Jane would just go off like that."

Coutts was interviewed again five days after Miss Longhurst's body was found.

He was unable to provide details of his movements on the evening the body was discovered in flames.

Coutts said he had driven round Hove trying to deliver Kleeneze products and collecting catalogues but could not give addresses.

Coutts was reinterviewed on April 24 after a Kleeneze box was found with the body.

Again, Coutts was unable to provide details to corroborate his claim he had been on his Kleeneze rounds the night the body was dumped.

Coutts was arrested on suspicion of kidnap and murder.

During a later interview Coutts declined to comment.

His solicitor said his client was tired and 'in quite a degree of shock' from the enormity of the situation facing him.

Coutts was later released on bail but police kept his keys.

One was later found to fit a padlock on Unit C50 at the Big Yellow Self-Storage warehouse in Coomb Road, Brighton, where, police said, the body had been stored.

Earlier yesterday, the court heard from forensic expert Paul Dyer who carried out DNA tests on items found in Unit C50.

He said a condom carried Coutts' sperm and Miss Longhurst's DNA: "There is a billion to one chance it was not from Coutts."

A blue shirt carried Coutts' sperm and Miss Longhurst's blood.

A pair of knickers carried Miss Longhurst's DNA and a second pair Miss Stephens' DNA.

The jury was expected to hear today (Wednesday) what Coutts told police when he was arrested for a second time.

The trial continues.